The second the last float passes through the Steveston Salmon Festival parade, Davood Khatami and many of his fellow village merchants will be sparking their barbecues for Canada Day.
Dotted around Steveston’s business community, one-by-one, store owners will fire up the grills in front of their properties to entertain customers new and old and passers-by.
It’s a time-honoured village tradition on every July 1 that the merchants get their collective teeth stuck into.
And this year is no different, with Bean and Beyond Café owner Khatami leading the way, as ever.
“We love nothing more than getting the barbecue out,” said Khatami, who helped organized last summer’s Steveston World Cup street festival to co-ordinate with the actual World Cup of soccer.
“We do this every year and so do many of the people around here. We get things going right after the parade.
“But we open at 7 a.m. especially for Canada Day and we’ll have coffee and muffins outside on the sidewalk, and all the flags will be flying.”
Khatami said he deliberately doesn’t offer the traditional Canada Day dish of salmon on his barbecue out of respect for the festival’s annual salmon bake, which raises money for the local community centre programs.
Meanwhile, Mark Glavina, owner of the Phoenix Art Workshop in Steveston, is the brains behind a brand new Canada Day event in the village — Chalk the Boardwalk.
After being asked by the City of Richmond to come up with an idea to link the Salmon Festival in the village to the city’s Ships to Shore event at Britannia Heritage Shipyards, Glavina gave birth to the concept of a street chalking competition.
And starting at 10 a.m. on Canada Day seven teams of artists will plot-point themselves along the competition route, from the Steveston Community Centre, down Easthope Avenue and east along the boardwalk to the Phoenix Pond.
The teams will spend several hours conjuring and creating their works of art on the sidewalk, with a $500 prize for the winning organization.
“We’re giving them a blank canvas to create what they want,” said Glavina, whose own non-competing team will be chalking a theme of “birthday wishes to Canada from around the world.”
Three judges — from the city, community centre and Phoenix Art — will decide on the winner.
“This could be quite fun and has the potential to grow; Victoria has a massive event like this,” added Glavina.
